Bad Golf’s John Robins: “I’ve had ‘The Glimpse'”
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After three months of grafting in the gym, Bad Golf’s John Robins is seeing some impressive distance gains… but that is providing its own challenges!
In his exclusive monthly Today’s Golfer column, the comedian and broadcaster explains the impact of hitting longer shots and how he’s .
At the start of the year, I made the decision to start addressing my level of golf fitness. You may remember me discussing my rather pitiful performance during a PGA fitness assessment. Well, after three months of twice-weekly cross-fit sessions I’m starting to see some really promising results.
I still only really get endorphins from Guinness and sitting down, but my body has begun to change and with it my golf swing.
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I’d say the work I’m doing is about 60% stretching and rotation exercises, and 40% strength, I don’t feel like a gym junkie at all, just someone who can reverse park without getting a crick in their neck anymore. But this increased rotation has enabled me to extend my backswing a lot further, the extra upper body strength (the first I’ve ever had by the way), means I’m starting to get the smallest hint of some explosive power.
To put that in some context, on a range, using range balls, I used to carry a seven iron about 140-145 yards when I was really warmed up and striking it well. This week I maxed out at 159 yards!
My driver used to carry a range ball about 180-185 yards with a fair wind. And I’ve got that up to around 200 yards now. On a recent online test of the new Stealth driver, a golf pro concluded that on average it carried a yard further for him than the previous model, 283 yards compared to 282 yards or something insane like that. Let’s face it, that’s a level of improvement that is completely irrelevant to you or me. But a ten percent increase on all my clubs after a few weeks of huffing and puffing and looking like a sweaty prat? Count me in.
So far, the training has probably cost the same as a second-hand set of irons. Initially, I thought “can I really afford to add a personal trainer to my list of outgoings? Well if you’d told me there was a set of clubs that could add fifteen yards to my seven iron I’d have bitten your hand off.
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There are, of course, other benefits that I wouldn’t have got with a simple change in equipment. My body is a slightly less unappealing shape, my beer belly is more of a shandy belly, and I don’t get lower back pain or weird twitching in my legs when I lie down to go to sleep. I’d love to say I was a completely new person, reborn and fresh-faced, but alas, there are only so many of life’s woes two hours of exercise a week can fix.
But it has given me a golfing conundrum to wrestle with. It’s called ‘The Glimpse’. I was first alerted to ‘The Glimpse’ by YouTube golfing mentor Golf Sidekick. His videos on the mental side of golf and course management especially, are essential viewing for golfers of any ability. But ‘The Glimpse’ is what happens when we get a brief insight into our true ability. And it can be a dangerous thing.
We’ve all had it regardless of our level. It might be a run of three pars, it might be playing the back nine at one over, or it might simply be one perfect shot from the perfect position. It shows us how good we can be.
These moments keep us coming back to golf, but they can also add to our frustrations. How many times have you heard someone say “Why don’t I do that all the time?!” or “I was hitting this club so well last week!”. We’ve all absolutely pured a provisional ball only to stomp off in a sulk because we didn’t do that the first time. Why do we do this to ourselves?! Ninety nine times out of a hundred we use our best form as a stick to beat ourselves with, as opposed to a positive image to hold on to when times are tough. Only a golfer would chastise themselves for playing too well!
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I would say, for the first time in a few years of semi-regular golf, I’m now able to hit a golf ball in a way I would be happy to hit it for the rest of my life. Only one in ten shots maybe, but still, I’m getting ‘the glimpse’ of where my game could be and finally thinking “that’s good enough for me”.
The only problem is my distances are all over the place. I can’t trust that I’m going to carry my seven iron 160 yards every shot because I haven’t grooved this swing yet, and it might easily take another year to find any level of consistency. Last week I hit a six-iron 209 yards (admittedly it was 20 yards downhill with a hefty 20mph wind behind), and it didn’t just go through the green, it waved down to it screaming “See ya later!” before landing 30 yards beyond.
There was a time when I’d have been livid for choosing the wrong club, miscalculating the wind and slope, but what I’m trying to do now is just laugh and think “maybe one day I’ll do that to a target that’s 209 yards away!”. What I’m saying is, when you get The Glimpse, don’t beat yourself up that you don’t play like that all the time, hold on to the memory of the sound, the connection, the flight, the distance. And put the image in your bag as a reminder that your best golf is only one shot away.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Robins is an award-winning stand-up comedian, co-host of the Elis James and John Robins show and How Do You Cope on BBC Radio 5Live, host of the Moon Under Water podcast, and a superfan on The Queen Podcast. Alongside fellow comedian Alex Horne, John is one half of the hit YouTube channel Bad Golf.
You can follow John on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and follow Bad Golf on Twitter and Instagram.
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Bad Golf's John Robins discusses his recent distance gains.
